Users are often offered different types of network services from service providers (ISPs). These users typically will opt for the service or services that matches their perceived use of the connection. When users opt for a higher degree of service, they expect a higher throughput of data. However, due to defects in equipment or congestion in the network, it is possible for users to get a lower than Service Level Agreement (SLA) throughput. An SLA is a contract between a service provider and a user that specifies the level of service that is expected during its term. Since this is unacceptable to users, ISPs need facilities to identify the problematic switches in the user's connection, so that problems with the connection can be remedied quickly.
Presently, ISPs need to log into each and every switch to find out if there have been cell drops for the specific connection. Cell drop information would be helpful in determining whether specific switches are the source of the problem. A standard connection-trace command may be utilized to identify the switches that the connection traverses, and to identify the connection-id on each switch. Then cell-drop information may be queried from each switch separately. This may be accomplished in two ways. First, the administrator can log into each of the switches and use the command-line interface on each switch to see the number of cells dropped by the specific connection. Second, since cell-drop information is maintained in Management Information Bases (MIBs), the administrator can query the MIBs of each switch separately to find out the cell-drop information. Either approach one involve a laborious process, especially if the connection spans many switches. Moreover, if the connection spans networks where the ISP offering the service does not have access to the switches of MIBs, the process of determining problematic switches becomes impossible.
FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating the typical cell-drop information gathering process. In order for a user 100 to obtain cell-drop information for a connection that spans from switch 102a through switch 102e, he must make individual log-in attempts 104a-104d to each switch 102b-102e. What is needed is a solution that allows an ISP to quickly and automatically identify problematic switches.